Apevia X-Telstar Red/Black Case Review

Introduction:

Full towers, mid-towers, windowed, red, blue ... choosing a case can be extremely difficult. There are literally tons of different choices to choose from and surprisingly, affect a computer a great deal. Not only in looks, but cases determine cooling performance, the number of components, noise and the size constraints for hardware. I work on my computers on a daily basis - I do not want a case to fall apart or break when I'm pulling out my favorite game. Obviously, this is the point in a build where all the components come together - the backbone of a build is the case.

So today, I got my hands on the Apevia red and black X-Telstar, which is a larger full tower case. The X-Telstar is a slightly more expensive case, which comes with a windowed side-panel, three large 120MM fans, a removable motherboard tray and a good deal of drive bays - twelve to be exact. Apevia heavily advertises the large LCD gauge on the front of the case, which displays important readouts in a new retro format. I'm a fan of windowed cases with fancy gadgets, but only to a point. Unfortunately, these cases tend to be overly flashy, poorly constructed and badly designed. Let's see how it fares.

Closer Look:

This is what I found at my doorstep. I was somewhat surprised at the size of the box - I bet the delivery guy was perplexed carrying this colorful thing. Unfortunately though, I picked it up and found that it was quite light, which is not a good sign in terms of quality for such a large case. Again, Apevia plastered gigantic pictures of the gauge all over the case. I certainly hope that the gauge doesn't take away from the rest of the chassis.

The X-Telstar was encased in standard packaging. It was inside a protective bag, wedged securely in between two styrofoam supports.

I wrestled the case out, and found the case in good shape. The window is protected unlike some of Apevia's other cases.

Inside a small box within the case, I found several packets of screws. More than enough by the looks of it and two pairs of keys for the locks on the front and side panel. The manual was sitting by the case when I first opened the box.